Extradition and Empire: Sovereignty and Subjecthood in Hong Kong

Name: Extradition and Empire: Sovereignty and Subjecthood in Hong Kong
Brand: Cambridge University Press
SKU: 9781009356930
Price: 1324.05 HKD
Availability: InStock
Author: Ivan Lee
ISBN: 9781009356930

By Ivan Lee

Cambridge University Press July 2025

Specifications

ISBN-13: 9781009356930
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication: July 2025
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

In the first book-length study of the interwoven history of extradition in Hong Kong, Ivan Lee shows how British judges, lawyers, and officials navigated the nature of extradition, debated its legalities, and distinguished it over time from other modalities of criminal jurisdiction – including deportation, rendition, and trial and punishment under territorial and extraterritorial laws. These complex debates were rooted in the contested legal status of Chinese subjects under the Opium War treaties of 1842–43. They also intersected wider shifts and tensions in British ideas of territorial sovereignty, criminal justice and procedure, and the legal rights and liabilities of British subjects and alien persons in British territory. In the end, a new area of imperial law emerged as Britain incorporated a frontier colony into an increasingly territorial and legally homogenous empire. This important perspective revises our understanding of the legal origins of colonial Hong Kong and British imperialism in China.

Acknowledgements

List of Maps

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Dimensions of Extradition and Empire

1. Improvising Sovereignty

2. Domesticating Mobility

3. Navigating Disorder

4. Rationalising Reciprocity

5. Founding Alsatia

Conclusion: Legacies of Extradition

Notes

Index